tap water for formula

is it okay to use boiled tap water for baby formula? i would have thought so, but my helper told me she thought there was too much of a chlorine smell in our tap water. i read on the hong kong water site that they do add chlorine but boiling the water would kill that. but also, we live in an old building so could this affect the quality of the water? it seems a bit excessive to use bottled water and i just want to be absolutely sure that hong kong tap water is fine.

We belong to the more paranoid crowd. Boiling does not eliminate dissolved metals and other toxins. Brita filters help though.


We use Volvic or Watson's water for our kids and for my wife who is breastfeeding. This includes water for boiling pasta and rice.


As for boiling killing chlorine, chlorine is not a living thing.

Most water filters also don't filter out fluoride which has been shown to decrease IQ in children. Best to use bottled water.

I thought we, especially kids, need fluoride for healthy teeth?!

"I thought we, especially kids, need fluoride for healthy teeth?!"


You get plenty from your toothpaste. But it's not very healthy to swallow in large doses, especially for young kids. That's one of the reasons toddler toothpaste contains little or no fluoride. The other is that toddlers tend to swallow toothpaste while older kids and adults are taught to spit.

"I thought we, especially kids, need fluoride for healthy teeth?!"


Gosh, I don't even know where to start with that one! Fluoride is a neurotoxin and a carcinogen. This has been known for over sixty years. So why is it put in drinking water? It is a by-product of the aluminium and nuclear energy industries; it is too toxic to dispose of in streams and rivers. Another way was needed to "dispose" of it. Voila, say it's good for teeth, get the 'right' people to endorse it and the unknowing public will swallow it.


There are now further studies showing the dangers of this poison, including bone cancers in children and hip fractures in adults. Even leading scientists, once advocates for mass fluoridation of drinking water, now admit they were wrong and it should stop for the health of people.


Last year, over 7,000 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) employees called on Congress to pass a moratorium on the use of fluoride in drinking water, citing a series of new studies directly connecting the chemical to cancer. The

group, made up predominantly of EPA scientists, sent letters to key Congressional committees and the EPA Secretary, calling for the EPA to classify fluoride as a human carcinogen.



A brief synopsis from Mothering magazine:

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New Fluoride Warning for Infants


Does your drinking water contain added fluoride? If so, keep it away from infants under the age of one. This directive was issued recently by an unlikely source: the American Dental Association (ADA).


In a November 9th email alert sent to all of its members, the ADA noted that "Infants less than one year old may be getting more than the optimal amount of fluoride if their primary source of nutrition is powdered or liquid infant formula mixed with water containing fluoride." The ADA went on to advise: "If using a product that needs to be reconstituted, parents and caregivers should consider using water that has no or low levels of fluoride."


The ADA issued this advice because babies exposed to fluoridated water are at high risk for developing dental fluorosis—a defect of the teeth which can result in staining and even corrosion of the enamel. In addition, on October 14th, the Food and Drug Administration stated that fluoridated water marketed to infants cannot claim to reduce the risk of cavities.


Dental fluorosis is not the only risk stemming from a baby's exposure to fluoride. In the same week that ADA issued its advisory, an article in the British journal, The Lancet, reported that fluoride may damage a child's developing brain. The Lancet review described fluoride, along with the rocket fuel additive perchlorate, as an "emerging neurotoxic substance" due to evidence linking fluoride to lower IQs in children, and brain damage in animals.


"Newborn babies have undeveloped brains, and exposure to fluoride, a suspected neurotoxin, should be avoided," notes Hardy Limeback, a member of a 2006 National Research Council panel on fluoride toxicity, and former President of the Canadian Association of Dental Research.


Fluoride is linked with other health problems as well, including weakened bones, reduced thyroid activity, and possibly, bone cancer in boys, according to a recent report from a team of Harvard scientists, the US National Research Council and other recent studies.


While most of western Europe has abandoned the practice of adding fluoride to water, most US water supplies remain fluoridated. In addition, some brands of bottled water sold in the US, such as Nursery Water, specifically market fluoridated water for young babies.


A recent investigation by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) found that over-exposure to fluoride among infants is a widespread problem in most major American cities. EWG's study found that, on any given day, up to 60% of formula-fed babies in US cities were exceeding the Institute of Medicine's "upper tolerable" limit for fluoride.


"Water is supposed to be safe for everyone. Why add a chemical that makes it knowingly unfit for young children? The US should follow Europe's lead and end fluoridation," says Michael Connett, Project Director of the Fluoride Action Network.

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Finally:


"Fluoridation ... is the greatest fraud that has ever been perpetrated and it has been perpetrated on more people than any other fraud has.”


— Professor Albert Schatz, Ph.D.

[Microbiology], Nobel Prize Winner



"Your well-intentioned dentist is simply following 50 years of misinformation from public health and the dental association. Me, too. Unfortunately, we were wrong."


— Dr. Hardy Limebeck

Professor of Dentistry

University of Toronto



It is worth serious thought to reconsider the use of fluoridated tap water for all people, but particularly for the most vunerable... unless the false promise of "good teeth" takes priority.

I had our water tested for free by Life Solutions and was shocked by the result.


http://www.lifesolutions.com.hk/whitepapers/whitepapers1.php

Hi Nula..What was the result....is it ok to share that with everyone...what have started doing after the result..

yes i would also like to know the results of your Life Solutions water test. is it no obligation? did you have to purchase their products/services after that?

Sorry, it was 3 years ago I know it was the high content of dissolved metals but can't remember if this included lead. The water turned a revolting shade of brown when they tested it. They also tested the water from the Brita Filter and although better was still not appetising. It was obligation free but we did decide to get one of their reverse osmosis filters about a week later.


We have a little tap that sits on the edge of the sink. The downside is that the storage tank and filter takes up about a third of the cupboard under the sink. They just call to let us know when they are coming to change the filters.


Have posted info about what we have below.



What is a reverse-osmosis water filter?


A complete reverse-osmosis filter system is an under-the-sink obstacle course, stopping nearly every contaminant that tries to take a ride up your cold-water line. Models vary somewhat, but most units force water first through a flashlight-size "prefilter" that strains out sediment and then through a cellophanelike membrane that screens out even smaller pollutants. Before reaching a special faucet mounted on your sink, the now-clean water gets one last scrubbing from a carbon filter that removes any lingering chemicals picked up along the way.

Who is it best for?

Reverse-osmosis filtering is a good choice if you're concerned about a wide range of contaminants — especially chemicals and heavy metals like lead — and want the convenience and extra ressurance of drawing triple-filtered water directly from the tap.


What does it remove?


A complete system, including a prefilter and a postfilter, strips out lead, copper, arsenic, cadmium, chlorine, giardia, pesticides, salt, trihalomethanes, sulfates, cysts, and nitrates.


The reverse-osmosis membrane can also screen out at least some bacteria and viruses. But because it may contain tiny imperfections that allow a few microbes to slip through, you shouldn't use the filter for protection against these critters.

Please use a water filter to filter any water comes out from the tape, especially for baby feeding. I just bought one and they claim it can filter out heavy metals by the KDF treament proved and used by most of the departments in HK. Pls visit the below website : http://www.lechainon.net/he/history.htm

Don't forget to make up formula with hot 70 degree water. This is to kill germs in the powder, not the water.

Pix

Hi,


We are living in Shanghai. We always use distilled water-what they call "pure water"-for our 3 years old boy. Also we NEVER use tap water even boiled for cooking but the same distilled water. The distilled water is really pure compared to the tap water here in Shanghai. A friend of mine used a special machine to test the boiled tape water: after a few minutes the tap water became brown with a lot of dirty foam, wheras the distilled water remained transparent.

Even if you boil the water, metals, medecation, hormones, chemicals etc ARE NOT DISOLVED.

My two cents . Roman (sorry for my english, I am from France)